Ovum: Get secure, stupid

Ovum points the finger at lazy developers and tight budgets, citing Sony as an obvious example.

The hack which exposed all of its user’s data was because Sony’s priorities, says Ovum, were in making its services and websites look pretty rather than actually keeping sensitive information secure.

Ovum claims that in the past three years, 70 percent of the top 100 websites have at some point hosted malicious content or redirected to it. Analysts at Ovum suggest that rather than spending money on making websites enjoyable, developers should consider moulding their image on fortified compounds with a “hardened infrastructure”.

The report, simply called Web Security, is available now and also looks at things like social media security in business and securing mobile devices. We can save you some money on at least parts of the paper: Think about security, then do something about security.

Although it appears Ovum isn’t taking an innovative approach to security in its latest moneyspinner, it goes to show that there’s a demand for this kind of stuff and companies are starting to realise they shouldn’t stuff up the safety of their customers.

Really, we can thank Anonymous and LulzSec for the helping hand they’ve given in waking the world up to the elephant in the room. We can also thank them for roughly three thousand times the normal volume of security press releases piggybacking on their work.